Most people are horrible cooks now-a-days. It probably explains why we’ll consider going out for dinner to a chain restaurant, and overpay – for crappy foods. Seriously, 80% of today’s restaurant food is complete garbage! Why do we think it’s so great? Because not even we can make basic foods anymore!
This brings me to my point. If you’re going to please your toddler, you’re going to have to make the basic foods taste good enough for a critic. Your child is in no mood to humour your half-assed attempts at making veggies. If they taste like crap, he’ll just move from the top down in terms of what tastes least worst. If he goes hungry, he’ll make up the calories and vitamins by nagging for treats outside of meals. Usually these end up being empty calories from carbohydrate snacks and sugars from fruit drinks in effort to suck some nutritional value out of them. Naturally, this doesn’t work, so your toddler fights malnourishment despite consuming a glut of calories – empty calories as it where.
So time to re-work the kitchen. If you don’t want to over think things, then just add salt and butter. Trust me, you can make just about anything taste good by adding butter! Cheap restaurants even know this. Next add any sort of fat and more salt, then add some sugar. Okay, I’m being facetious now. In seriousness, you don’t want to fat, salt and sugar load your toddler. However, that being said, you could cut back such toppings on “good foods” – foods your toddler enjoys and put them on top of foods your toddler does not enjoy so much. Instead of topping toast with cheese to make garlic bread, put the cheese (fat and salt) onto the broccoli instead, then add some garlic. Careful not to overcook the broccoli to a soggy mess! See what I mean by critic. Also make sure you cut the broccoli up into small pieces first so your presentation remains worthy of your toddlers eyes. Foods have to look good too!
Dips and sauces can spice up meat, but you can also top veggies with it too. Why douse fries in ketchup when you can put it all over asparagus? Okay, this might not work, but then again, it just might – give it a try. Brown sugars can be added to boiling water to help carrots too. Just remember to cut back on the fruit drinks to make the exchange even across your toddlers complete diet. A favourite of my son’s is Cajun spice on top of mixed veggies – a delight. He also enjoys plenty of garlic – even from straight from the spice jar and chili beans, bring them on! Your baby isn’t interested in eating his foods because they are boring!
In most cases it’s the veggies that are the issue, but even sometimes meat can hang some kids up. Try cutting things up finely, try adding sauces, try swapping for beans or eggs and so forth. Your child’s tastes are going to evolve over time, but instead of getting frustrated, try making foods taste more like restaurant foods. Chances are pretty good that if your toddler is rejecting your foods, it’s probably not that good anyway. Maybe it’s cold – re-heat it and offer it again. There are many little details that matter to your toddler that he can’t communicate readily to you.